I want to end by reading three poems that are very recent.
The most recent, in fact, and I guess
they will go without explanation.
The first one is entitled, "December 29, 1890,"
Wounded Knee Creek.
It's a poem about a photograph, or a series of photographs.
"In the shine of photographs are the slain, frozen and black
on a simple field of snow.
They image ceremony.
Women and children dancing, old men prancing, making fun.
In the autumn, there were songs, long since
muted in the blizzard.
In summer, the wild buckwheat shone
like fox fur and quill work, and dusk guttered on the creek.
Now in serene attitudes of dance, the dead in glossy death
are drawn in ancient light."